This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

The FT is positively gleeful at the thought a future Government will have to take on the trade unions in order to impose spending cuts, and can rely not only upon the anti-union laws (untouched by New Labour) but also upon privatisation to weaken our unions. We are warned that we cannot expect sympathy from a "de-unionised" public.

The Morning Star also deserves credit for highlighting the dangerous plans from the Confederation of British Industry to undermine public service pension provision (http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/88806). Someone called John Cridland who is in charge of this self-interested club of employers says that final-salary pension schemes are "history" and cannot be afforded.

Since I want a pension for security in old age I will fight to hold on to the principle and practice of defined benefits.

If we want to stand a chance we need not only to respond vigorously to the lies of those attacking our (far from) "gold-plated" public sector pensions. We need not only to prepare for unity amongst public service unions to defend these pensions.

We need also to see that this is not about public sector -v- private sector. This is about working class -v- ruling class (or, to put it in more everyday language perhaps, people -v- profit).

The CBI want to level down public sector pensions not just to limit future tax liabilities but to shut off any debate about better pension provision in the private sector.

The FT celebrate the weakness even of the public sector unions not just because they want to see spending cuts, but because they never want to see private sector trade unionism restored to strength.

Private sector workers depend upon the "social wage" of public service provision and stand to gain nothing from attacks on the pay or pensions of those who provide such services.

It is in the interests of the working class not just that these attacks upon public services and public service workers should be resisted - but also that we should campaign, as trade unionists, to promote the interests of private sector workers - for example by extending access to viable defined benefit pension schemes such as the (funded) Local Government Pension schemes.

Unison members can do a little bit by prioritising for debate at our Conference Motion 23 on precisely this topic. We need to give much more thought though about how to build unity between public and private sector workers.